


Strength of the Wolf

by beauregret



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt, POV Second Person, Revenge, Set from the season 4 launch trailer all the way to the season 5 launch trailer, with a couple of bits in between
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24778552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beauregret/pseuds/beauregret
Summary: Your name is Loba Andrade, and this is how you try to avenge your parents.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Strength of the Wolf

**i.**

Your name is Loba Andrade.

You're nine years old, and it's the worst day of your life.

What was that creature, that  _ demônio _ that crashed into the restaurant and stole everything you held so dear to your heart? You're too young to understand the world your parents worked in; too young to know the dangers it carried, the risks it presented. 

All you know is that a monster just killed both your parents and made an orphan out of you. You've just watched the brutal massacre of so many innocent civilians; and Andrade family guards who you saw as being friends who helped you feel safe. This wasn't fair.

Deep down, you know your father is already dead when the elevator reaches the ground and his broken body waits in front of the doors. But your fragile hands reach for him all the same, desperately trying to shake him awake, to prove that you still had someone left in the world who loves you and didn't just pay for that love with their life.

It doesn't work.

By the time you stop trying to wake him up, your hands are coated red with his blood, and it smears along the side of your face when you try to rub your eyes and wipe some of your tears away. You probably look a sight for sore eyes, but you just don't care.

This is the moment where the weight of the world feels like its crashing down on your shoulders, and the grief threatens to drown you as you struggle to keep your head above the water.

It isn't helped by the metal wolf head on the ground by your knees; a last gift from your parents and the only thing you have left to your name. It feels heavy in your hands as you pick it up - it's a symbol of the pain that you're now carrying, and it's hard to hold because of that.

But hold it you will, because it's all you have left.

By the time the authorities find you, you have no tears left to cry, and papai's blood has dried on your skin. But you're not just grieving anymore. You're lost in your thoughts, but you are angry; furious that one monster could come along and ruin your life without even feeling sorry for doing so.

You may be too young to understand your parents' dangerous line of work, but you're not too young to understand the concept of murder, and definitely not too young to understand the concept of wanting to get your own back.

_ Sangue Lava Sangue _ , you've heard papai say before to one of his bodyguards.

_ Blood Washes Blood. _

You may only be nine years old, but you resolve at this moment to eventually find this demônio and  _ kill him; _ to make him pay for what he's done to your family today.

You  _ will _ get your revenge - even if it ends up killing you.

* * *

**ii.**

You're twelve years old, and you just stole your first possession.

Is it even stealing if it was yours to start with? Your 'guardians' had mentioned a letter that had been written  _ to you _ . A letter that was addressed  _ to you _ . And yet, they decided -  _ without consulting you _ \- that it wasn't something that you were ready to see.

Who are they to decide what you are and aren't ready to see? Why do they get to make that choice for you when you've already had to watch your parents die at the hands of a monster? It's not a decision you're happy to accept, so you simply reject it, and you steal the letter from the safe in their bedroom before they have a chance to dispose of it for good.

It doesn't feel like you're stealing much, in the grand scheme of things - but it's the meaning behind the action and the symbolism of what you stole that carries all the weight. This letter belongs to you in every sense of the word now. It had been yours to take; now it's yours to enjoy. 

And the best part? There's no butterflies forming in your stomach - no feeling that this was wrong or that you were making a serious mistake.

Of course, should your legal guardians find out about this, they'll try to scold you and they'll say that you're better than this, but they've said a lot of things recently that's crawled under your skin.  _ Be a good girl. Dress pretty and smile even prettier, even if you don't want to. Stop being angry with the world, it won't change what happened to your parents. _

A little while ago, you asked one of your so-called "new parents" if her mamāe and papai were still alive. She said yes.

You asked the other one the same question an hour later. He said yes too.

_ How can they tell you to stop being angry over losing your parents when they still have theirs?? _

That was the moment you stopped taking them seriously. And now here you are, taking your first step towards continuing the family legacy. When the lights go out later that night and your guardians are none the wiser, you light a candle by your bed and start to read.

It's a letter written by mamāe, from when she had been pregnant with you. You read it with tears threatening to spill from your eyes and a painful lump in your throat, but you take every single word to heart, because  _ this _ was the advice that you needed to hear.

_ "Only smile when you want to" _ is much more befitting than smiling to keep up appearances.

_ "Look people in the eye when you're talking to them - then you can tell them anything and they'll always believe you" _ feels like good advice to follow when you'll inevitably need to lie about stealing this letter.  _ "And you'll know whether to believe them" _ is a point you were already aware of from your distrust of your guardians.

Everything she wrote is a life lesson to learn, but it's her very first piece of advice that sticks with you the most:  _ "Whatever you decide to do for a living, make sure you enjoy it! - you spend too much time doing it to hate it." _

You  _ enjoyed _ stealing that letter. Was it too much to hope that maybe your calling in life was a path that wasn't necessarily legal, but was fitting and oh so right for you? The feeling of that success, the rush of getting into the safe without even having to break it open - all of it invokes an emotion that you would be quite happy to chase for the rest of your life.

So chase that emotion you do, because this is the moment where you decide that you want to become a master thief.

* * *

**iii.**

You're thirty-four years old, and your assistant just found  _ him _ .

What scares you first is that when Daniel brings up the face of that demônio on the screen next to you, you feel for a moment like you're nine years old all over again. Like he's making an orphan out of you all over again. The fear and the grief and the horror all return anew to you, and once more you feel like a scared little girl who just watched her life fall apart in real-time.

Twenty five years of rebuilding your life from the ashes, only to feel your past rushing back to you in one fell swoop.

You followed mamāe's advice, and decided to do something you enjoyed for a living. You became a thief - and a good one at that. It started with picking pockets, taking small items here and there and doing what you needed to do to survive - and then you got your hands on a Jump Drive. 

A bracelet capable of teleporting its wearer rested firmly in your hands, and from there, the only way for you was up. You lifted yourself out of the gutters and into high society, becoming a socialite and winning the respect of a lot of powerful people.

Nothing, you thought, could stop you now. But the simulacrum's face on the screen in front of you threatens to say otherwise.

"Where is he?" You force out between gritted teeth, slowly feeling your renewed grief and fear turn to anger.

"In the Apex Games." Comes the answer, and you feel like you're going to be sick. All those lives he's taken, all the survivors he's left in ruins, and yet the general public look to him not with fear, but with  _ adoration _ , all because he's in the games.

_ How could they not see how much of a monster he really was?? _

This is a question you aren't going to answer, a train of thought you aren't going to pursue.

Daniel brings up more information on the screen in front of you - the planets the games take place on; the locations of the arenas; and a point of interest below the arena on Solace. A closer inspection reveals that underneath this arena - more specifically, underneath an area known as Skull Town - was one of Hammond's best kept secrets.

And inside that best kept secret...the demônio's source code, the very thing that keeps him  _ alive _ .

Inside that best kept secret…your chance to avenge mamāe and papai.

You don't go to bed early that night after all. Instead, you spend the next few hours planning every miniscule detail of your revenge, from the way you're going to break into the facility to how you'll slip back out without being noticed once the damage was done. It feels like a foolproof plan by the time you and Daniel finish going through it.

Your stomach tingles with both nervousness and excitement.

When you eventually do go to bed, at 1 in the morning with your eyelids barely staying open, you take a moment to run your fingers along your trusty staff, coming to rest along the wolf head at the top. It feels heavy again - but not with the kind of heavy that it had felt like when you were nine years old and had the crushing weight of your grief on your shoulders.

This was a different kind of heavy: the kind that feels sturdy and secure, the kind that says  _ I've got your back, Loba. _

And you go to sleep with a smile on your face, hoping your parents are looking down on you with pride at what you're about to accomplish.

* * *

**iv.**

You're still thirty-four years old, and he's still out of your reach.

The best laid plans have gone to waste, and most of it lay in crumbling ruins behind your feet.

Technically, he's only  _ mostly _ out of your reach - there's no mistaking the face that's haunted your nightmares for twenty-five years and counting, and it's staring straight at you now. But the source code, the part that could really kill him, once and for all? That was locked away in a Hammond lab on Psamathe now. 

If only you had just kept your emotions in check for a few seconds longer. You were  _ so close _ to finally taking revenge…

You  _ will _ take it someday.

You're the greatest thief in the world for a reason - anything you want, you take. Sure, generally that logic was only usually meant to apply to actual, physical items; revenge, whilst a sweet thing to taste, was still very much intangible and hard to quantify at the end of the day.

Then again, you  _ can _ quantify it: one simulacrum.

And potentially a few accomplices from his time in the games too. For a thief, you've made quite the entrance into the arena, with Skull Town sinking down into the waters behind you and the champions of the Apex Games approaching from the cliffs, all eyes trained on  _ you _ . You count them off as you rise to your feet:

_ One, two, three _ \- a robot and its grapple; a man and his decoys; a hacker and his drone.

_ Four, five, six _ \- a guy with a shield; a woman with a healing drone; a speedster with robotic legs.

_ Seven, eight, nine _ \- a woman emerging from a portal; a soldier readying her gun; a hunter and their raven.

_ Ten, eleven _ \- a lady with electricity on her back; an ominous figure with a gas mask. 

Twelve…  _ him _ .

It's not really him. Just a body. Just something that can and will be replaced if you destroy it. But the persona's still there; the programming that orphaned you is still there.

Still challenging you to do something nobody else has ever done before.

"Come to kill me, little girl?" 

"Some day," not today, not anymore - but definitely some day. "But for now…" 

His current body stands before you - and you've got twenty-five years' worth of pent-up grief to take out on him. It's not going to be satisfying if you don't put at least two bullets for every year through him before you make a permanent end to his existence.

You pull out your gun and send his current body crashing into Skull Town's ruins. It's time to start taking your long-deserved revenge.

**Author's Note:**

> :o hi everyone!
> 
> This was a fun little something I was meant to have finished and uploaded before season 5 launched last month, but life got in the way in a little and here we are now.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it though! At the moment I'm planning to leave it at this, but as the broken ghost quest continues I might write a sequel which covers a version of events linked to that quest! <3


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